GCP Blogs

GCP's Sunset Blog

Established in October 2014, our Sunset Blog is a collection of our most captivating stories, as told by our partners, reflecting the legacy of 10 years of GCP. These joyful tales are full of life and rich with many voices. They focus on our crops, our partnerships, and the approaches that have made us unique – offering lessons learnt and visions for the future.

GCP Blog

Graduating from the 'Web Academy' at the same time as our redesigned website in mid-2012, the GCP Blog is the flagship of our communication media mix. Here, we tell the human stories behind the science.

We invite you to visit our hyperactive blogosphere hotspot, and learn even more about the GCP world in vintage blog style – conversational, easy and informal, penned in everyday nontechnical language. We also have a blog-based exclusive and all-inclusive below...

Mutation from blog to print, PDF and e-books: Conversations on crop breeding – September 2014

Ahead of GCP's closure in December 2014, a selection of GCP blogposts (as at September 2014) was repackaged for print, with a limited print edition exclusively for participants at GCP’s final General Research Meeting in October 2014 (whose copies all run out, we're glad to report, thus elevating them to collector's items!). But we are also all inclusive: scroll down for e-versions of our special six-set September surprise package for everyone everywhere.

The Conversations on crop breeding compilation below is the first in a series of our three-tiered plan. Up next will be Continued conversations on crop breeding when we close the GCP Blog, to be followed by Closing conversations on crop breeding when we close the GCP Sunset Blog. Watch this space!

Firstly, we get up close and personal with the very essence of GCP, from being a freshly hatched Programme a decade ago, then fondly watch how the fledgling GCP learnt to fly with its own research projects. From there we soar to a bird’s-eye view to see the perspective from the GCP Executive Board, followed by a spell down on common ground to understand some long-lasting couplings with one of our most consistent funders through time. Finally, we join GCP’s very own ‘kingfisher’ to take a dive into the deep end of R4D where upstream meets downstream in the GCP whirlpool.

In GCP’s research meadow, discover the passionate scientists carrying out the many strands of breeding research – blowing in the wind like the grass-like cereals in the field, fighting to survive in a world with ever more drought, disease and poor soils.

Join the scientific spectators who’ve gathered to see the erstwhile lowly legumes perform, playing a vital role for food security whilst replenishing soils with nutrients. GCP research has called in the talents of four legume stars: beans, chickpeas, cowpeas and groundnuts, with the spotlight on improving productivity by embracing modern breeding to overcome the twin villains of biotic and abiotic stresses.

Find out how brave bananas and courageous cassava have triumphed in a world where complex crops have often been sidelined by global research funding. Discover how GCP researchers have been pushing the boundaries and stretching the possibilities of these once overlooked crops to produce robust and disease-resistant varieties through the power of molecular breeding.

The conversation next turns to an under-represented sector of the research community: women in science who represent only 30 percent of the world’s researchers. GCP’s sisters in science show their mettle by soundly succeeding in their scientific sectors, whilst inspiring future generations of researchers to go forth and conquer!

GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) offers the global crop-breeding community the key to the informatics tool box – and is on hand with handy manuals and mentors to teach breeders exactly how to get the most out of new and emerging breeding tools. Add to this a comprehensive approach to capacity building that includes solid infrastructure interventions, and you have one integrated breeding force to reckon with!